On Dec. 3, Pharrell Williams will be honored with the Shoe of the Year award at the 39th annual FN Achievement Awards. Below is an article from the magazine’s Dec. 1 print issue about the Adidas Virginia Adistar Jellyfish.
Pharrell Williams’ exhaustive list of accomplishments grows year after year.
In 2025, the prolific artist-designer introduced one of the year’s most celebrated sneakers in the Virginia Adistar Jellyfish. The new Adidas model’s impact has reverberated throughout the footwear industry, spawning instant sell-throughs and secondary market values that defy the reported downswing in sneaker resale.
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The shoe debuted at retail in August following more than a year of mounting anticipation. First arriving in a bold orange color-up, the 2025 Shoe of the Year has since been released in green, gray and blue looks, each as coveted as the one before.
“The Jellyfish is an example of when the right icons meet. The shoe fit where Pharrell is and where the world sees him,” said James Whitner, founder of The Whitaker Group, whose retail banners include A Ma Maniére, Social Status and more.
The sneaker’s design echoes an archival Adidas model, 2005’s Adistar Cushion 3. Yet, side by side, the two shoes are similar only in their Y2K running shoe profile and intersecting linear overlays.
Williams’ new interpretation of the retro running shoe blows up the proportions of nearly every component — the exaggerated, puffy midsole is stretched out wide to mimic the gills of a jellyfish, the upper’s TPU layers jut out for a tentacle-like, 3D effect, and the materials are elevated with a mixture of layered mesh, reflective accents and, on some colorways, glow-in-the-dark elements.
Early in the introduction, a former Adidas designer shared that one of Williams’ guiding principles for the new style was to “go way bigger.”
Williams, who sported the shoe on the runway of his Louis Vuitton men’s show in June, told FN that this mantra applies not only to the exaggerated proportions of the Virginia Adistar Jellyfish but to the scope of the entire project. “‘Go bigger’ was a mindset,” he said. “If we’re going to do it, let’s really do it. So we stretched materials, stretched forms. We let the sole become sculpture, let the upper become architecture, let the idea of ‘running’ expand into ‘moving through life.’ Bigger just meant elevating everything.”
Bjørn Gulden, CEO of Adidas, points to the reaction from fans as a testament to the appeal of Williams’ design. “It’s a great recognition for the brand and for the people behind the product,” Gulden tells FN. “Pharrell is one of the most creative persons on the planet and is a unique partner for us. The shoe captures this. Awards are nice, but what really matters is how excited consumers are about the shoe. That makes us proud as a team. It’s always good when creativity and relevance come together.”
Meanwhile, Torben Schumacher, senior vice president and global general manager of Adidas Originals, basketball and partnerships at Adidas, tells FN that Williams’ curiosity has been the partnership’s biggest strength. “We don’t stop at the surface level,” Schumacher says. “Pharrell is a great creative who cares very deeply about the process and the details. When we combine that with Adidas’ innovation capabilities, that’s when we are able to create stories that are truly new in a meaningful way. What you get moves beyond the product itself, where now we’re having a real impact on conversations, on style. It creates a world we welcome others to live in. That’s what Originals has always been about, and it’s what Pharrell has always done, so when partners approach something with that shared curiosity and ambition, coupled with capability, it’s the ideal scenario.”
The acclaimed Virginia Adistar Jellyfish lives within a wider body of work that debuted alongside the sneaker and pays homage to Williams’ hometown of Virginia Beach, Va.
Touted in a press release as a “destination for super fans,” the Virginia creative platform comprises merchandise, music, live events and more. Since its August arrival, the Virginia website (Blackyachtrock.com) has been home to Adistar Jellyfish sneaker drops, beach-themed products emblazoned with “VIRGINIA,” and a formal release of the artist’s 2024 “Black Yacht Rock Vol. 1: City of Limitless Access” album, complete with a virtual karaoke feature.
What Came Before
Since establishing their partnership in 2014, Adidas and Williams have released hundreds of sneakers together. It began with a small collection of collaborative Stan Smith styles before quickly blossoming with a 50-shoe Superstar Supercolor collection in 2015.
By 2016, the union had hit its stride with the introduction of a reimagined version of the NMD model. Dubbed the NMD Humanrace — sometimes referred to as the NMD Hu — the shoe came in eye-catching colors and patterns with large textual embroidery spelling out pairings such as “human species,” “breathe thoughts,” “feel alive” and “liberty justice.” Some styles featured characters in other languages, while the model’s rarest and most coveted colorway, a $1,160 collaboration with Chanel from 2017, was produced in just 500 units.
Over the next several years, Williams’ Adidas Humanrace line delved beyond its knitted silhouette into other categories including hiking and tennis. Partnerships with longtime friend Nigo’s Humanrace label and Williams’ own Billionaire Boys Club brand followed, but eventually, the line flirted with becoming oversaturated. Consumer energy around the collection waned due to the sheer number of releases, so 2023’s chunky NMD S1 MAHBS marked Williams’ final NMD-adjacent launch.
The Humanrace launches didn’t stop, though, expanding into the on-trend Samba silhouette in 2024 before adding Adidas’ runner-favorite Evo SL sneaker to the fold this year. While those pairs have proved popular, the August debut of the Virginia Adistar Jellyfish sparked a level of interest in the designer’s Adidas footwear that hasn’t been witnessed for nearly a decade.
The Virginia Adistar Jellyfish sold out instantly with launches from both the Virginia website and the Adidas Confirmed app, which the sportswear brand uses to release its high-profile product. With a retail price of $300, resale prices instantly ballooned to over $1,000 for the shoe’s most popular sizes.
According to Gulden, the Jellyfish is a natural evolution of the Adidas archive. “Our archive is one of our biggest assets,” the Adidas CEO told FN in November. “We have more than 75 years of creating sports products to build on. This is a huge advantage. And what I think is even more important are the new innovations coming from our teams and partners. Don’t forget that all the products in the archive were once an innovation, and our mindset is that what we create today should continue that legacy. A performance shoe of today could be an Originals shoe tomorrow. The Jellyfish shows this well. It looks futuristic, but it started with the Adistar from 1976. History helps, but you have to move forward. The archive is the starting point, not a limit. When our people use it, they create products that feel fresh and relevant for the next generation.”
While the Virginia range represents a new tone for Williams’ creative output with Adidas, the Humanrace line is still very much active, which may lead some fans to question the difference between the two franchises. Williams breaks it down by describing Humanrace as “utility and simplicity,” while Virginia emphasizes “culture and universe.”
“Virginia is my home,” Williams explained. “It’s the origin. So when we create under the Virginia umbrella with Adidas, we’re talking about roots, culture and identity — not just the shoe, but the ecosystem around it: the story, the place the community. With Humanrace, we explore tools for living: everyday, inclusive, human-centric.”
State of Mind
According to Williams, the Virginia brand preceded the creation of the Adistar Jellyfish sneaker. He said the initial focus was building the platform’s identity through music and community. “Once that foundation was there, the Jellyfish became the first expression with Adidas. It’s a product that carries the spirit of the larger universe we created,” he said.
With buzz around the Virginia Adistar Jellyfish peaking, Williams returned to Virginia Beach in early October to hold a pop-up event featuring new sneaker colorways, themed merch and a special activation at the just-opened 116,000-square-foot Atlantic Park Surf facility, of which Williams is a partner. It was there that the new line’s beach-themed items, which range from Virginia-branded towels and surfboards to binoculars and fishing lures, started to make even more sense.
During his visit, Williams launched the Next Wave Youth Surf and Swim program, a yearlong partnership with Adidas and Atlantic Park Surf that will help young Virginia Beach residents learn the ways of the water. For the early October pop-up event, the initiative tapped the Ebony Beach Club to teach local youth how to surf.
“[Atlantic Park] is a world we’re building with incredible brands and experiences that reflect the spirit of Virginia Beach,” Williams said. “A place where young people will find confidence in the water, where community comes together, where artists collaborate and new ideas are born. Virginia Beach is already a cultural destination, but there’s so much more to come.”
Selling Points
Despite its numerous hometown tie-ins, the reach of Williams’ Adistar Jellyfish is much broader. Nearly 3,000 miles away, in the Chinatown district of Los Angeles, buy-and-sell resale shop Syndicate touts the shoe as one of 2025’s most in-demand items.
“Any sneaker that can do double retail and more in this economy is great,” said Syndicate co-owner Cristian Rodriguez. “Every pair we post flies and there are always people hitting us up asking if they are still available.”
Rodriguez points out another key metric that shows the Virginia Adistar Jellyfish hype is real: There are more customers buying the shoe from Syndicate than seeking to resell it.
Resale marketplace StockX paints a similar picture. Its reports show demand for the Virginia Adistar Jellyfish’s debut orange colorway has steadily increased since its August release. In October, a sale for the sneaker surpassed $2,000 — more than six times the original retail price. And as availability of the limited-edition look dwindles, the style’s value is only continuing to surge. Follow-up colorways in blue, gray and green are performing similarly well, steadily rising as fewer units become available.
With the buzz around the Jellyfish remaining hot, Pharrell promises this is only the beginning of the Virginia brand. “We’ve been cooking, and there’s a lot coming. You’ve seen the first signals through Virginia, but that’s just the start. There’s a whole universe we haven’t shown yet.”
And, he noted, this series is not pulling his focus from Humanrace, which will soon debut “things no one else has been thinking about.
“On the Humanrace side, we’re building something entirely different, something that’s meant to make people’s lives better in very real ways,” he said.
As for the man himself, Williams said that creating something that resonates with the world to the extent that it’s named Shoe of the Year is a blessing. “The Adistar Jellyfish was never about playing it safe; it was about expanding the idea of what movement could look like,” he said.
And when asked if he feels pressured to outdo himself year after year, particularly following an award-winning release, Williams responded with the same limitless perspective that’s taken him this far.
“Pressure? I don’t see it like that,” he said. “I see it as freedom. There’s expectation, but really there’s an invitation to go a little further, to explore a little beyond.”
For 39 years, the annual FN Achievement Awards — often called the “Shoe Oscars” — have celebrated the style stars, best brand stories, ardent philanthropists, emerging talents and industry veterans. The 2025 event is supported by Caleres, Listrak, Nordstrom, Skechers, Vibram and Wolverine Worldwide.
